Members of Anonymous have re-doubled their offensive against German neo-Nazis.
The hacktivists of Operation Blitzkrieg this week launched a WikiLeaks-style website that aims to expose members of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) and other extremist groups, Der Spiegel reports. Nazi-leaks.net (German) already features …

Pseudo-Voltaire bullshit

You can't use 'democracy' and 'freedom of speech' to defend groups whose avowed aim is to to overthrow both of those by violent means.

A poll only six weeks ago showed 77% of Germans want this bunch of psychopaths to be banned, especially after a nest of them in Zwickau were discovered to have murdered 10 people http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Most+Germans+want+Nazi+party+banned/5766765/story.html

I could go on but I generally find that people with *any* sympathies for Nazis aren't interested in hearing any other angle, so why waste my own time ?

Since WW2 Germany has been somewhat "sensitive" to racial hatred, they also are anti cult for similar reasons, they have removed the right of some people to act like twats in the hope that nothing happens like this again, fair enough, besides it's a democaracy, if enough people want the law overturned, it will be.

In Anon's defense

Many things are legal, including borrowing money by people & countries who can't afford it, and look where that brought us. Or Saudi's treatment of women, or Rupert Murdoch etc.

If people always played by the rules set by the government, we would not have democracy today. Democracy evolved because people were not happy with the current emperor/king/...

While it's beyond dispute that the action is not legal, it is IMO ethical (I'm one who'd kick a burglar in the nuts before calling the cops, who'd let him off with a warning). And it's human morals and ethics that advance democracy. The laws in power are just a reflection of the most recent major political change.

Little more than a century ago, it was LEGAL (your shouting, not mine) in the UK to pay for sex with 12-year-old girls.

By your standards, anyone publicly denouncing those men (eg posting lists of their names on the church noticeboard) would deserve to be prosecuted for harassment, because their actions were LEGAL, weren't they ?

Think about it this way...

if they were a party of pedophiles, there isn't a law that say you cannot be a pedo-party. but in practice, if you wanted to preach this, you would get beaten to a pulp every time you speak.

Nazis are basically the same, only worst. if you ran a nonce party you'd expect your name and face to be plastered on all sorts of internet forums, why should it be any different to supporters of the most genocidal ideology in history and one which we have reached a common sense consensus we want to eliminate for the sake of human progress?

Anon, because they have a history of beating up anyone who says otherwise

It's too easy a line to cross

I'm no Nazi fan but I do believe in democracy and free speech. If a political party holds repugnant views that's their right, and they have the same rights to privacy as the rest of us. Is there any difference between this and the posting of pictures and addresses by Redwatch (the BNP spotters) of anti-fascist protestors other than being on seperate sides? My point is that as soon as you start curtailing rights or ignoring the flaunting of rights for a few it becomes much harder to justify the protection of those rights in other cases. This is why public opinion isn't used as a measure of guilt in courts and why we don't support the death penalty regardless of crime. If you don't have privacy of political views democracy breaks down or is stifled (e.g. Iraq). I find many religious doctrines repugnant but if I started naming Christians who supported discrimination against gays or Jews who supported Palestinian settlements, or Muslims who supported the oppression of women would that be right as well? And where would that leave our privacy?

Freedom of expression doesn't make it alright

This is one of the most complicated issues in democratic societies, it's a sort of paradox that exists purely because of the existence of fascism. from the one hand we want people's privacy to be respects, and we do not want to limit freedom of speech. from the other hand, we've seen time and again that followers of this ideology have denied these very rights to the vast majority.

If we restrict the freedom of speech we cannot consider ourselves to be a free society, but if we allow them to speak we would not be a a free society. all other ideologies are not mutually exclusive to this degree. you can argue with a capitalist without fear of retribution, you can argue with a religious fanatic , a conservative, a liberal, an anarchist and a communist. but with fascists the centre argument is that you are not allowed to argue, that your voice is invalid because of the place you we're born, or your ethnic background, or your religious beliefs, your sexual inclination or your gender.

if all that fails, ie you are white Christian man, and still disagree then you are a race traitor and hence your opinions are invalid. not only this, but your life is of little to no value, to the extent that the skin and fat on your bones become more valuable than your being a human being.

This conflict has not quick fix, and societies which wanted to remain free had to strike a very delicate balance, the essence of this balance, and what protected us from them until now was the absolute and total no platform social policy which we have all helped (or should of) to enforce.

As for the state, well for it, it is sometimes beneficial to allow various degrees of Nazi expression and sometimes it is beneficial for them to be seen to oppose it completely. but as society it is an absolute essential that we stop this expressions entirely.

In the age of internet, it's much harder to enforce this kind of no platform approach, so instead one approach is to expose those who speak these words, and to show who they are, so that they can be confronted about these opinions, as well as so that they know that their words have consequences.

on the face of it, this approach seems hypocritical, you essentially say we respect everyone's right for privacy and expression except nazis, but I cannot think of a better solution, albeit temporary. in time, as internationalisation of society sinks in, Nazism will be wipes out purely because no one wants to see their friends, neighbours, or family members come in harms way. it's fault essentially is that people actually like meeting people of other cultures, eating various foods, listening to world-wide mixture of music, and debating morality/theology/philosophy with people of differing points of view, provided they are respected and listened to themselves.

I see where you're coming from

But there's one fatal flaw - fascists can only truly limit people's free speech in a free society if they gain power. As a believer in democracy, I have to admit that even if I disagree with what they would do, if the majority of people who voted went for a fascist party then I'm in the minority and will accept the result and emigrate. The thing is, that's very unlikely so I feel quite safe. There is a more insidious method though, and that's by arguing that there are equal or worse people who need their free speech limiting but that's only possible when we decide who has rights and who doesn't. The ONLY way to combat this type of thinking is to show how dangerous, detrimental and disgusting those ideologies are, not by trying to sweep it under the carpet.

1875

Same problem as WBC, same answer

This is the same thorny problem as dealing with the Westboro Baptist Church idiots. I assert that denying these oxygen thieves the right to publicly show us how stupid they are is a bad idea. I'd rather see another old fashioned solution: shunning.

Identify these Neo-Nazis: if they are too chicken-excrement to stand publicly behind their beliefs, so be it. If they ARE willing to stand behind their beliefs, then let the rest of us exercise OUR freedom of speech by refusing to do business with them: don't sell them groceries, don't fix their vehicles, don't let them hire your cab, don't rent them a room, don't accept their money in your bank - let them be shunned by society, and let them find out how hard it is to go it truly alone.

They're neo-Nazis. Of course not

Neo-Nazis are scum, fools, mostly not worth anyone's time except inasmuch as they do occasionally become violent and need dealing with -- and I dare say there is no overlap between the ones which every now and again need to be shot like dogs, and the ones which behave like ill-raised children on Facebook. (Then again, who doesn't?)

The very fact that they have to call themselves "neo" Nazis is enough to tell you they're on the losing side, and my God, have you *seen* these people? The American ones, at least -- flabby, waddling, zit-pocked losers, thinking their shorn scalps make them look intimidating rather than laughable, more ridiculous even than children playing dress-up in Daddy's uniform in front of the mirror -- at least a child in Daddy's uniform doesn't expect to be taken seriously, while every fat bitter midwestern slob with a stubbly head and a swastika armband swaggers around thinking he's il Duce.

That Anonymous, or at least the latest publicly noticeable incarnation thereof, feels the desire to waste so much effort in the risible cause of demonstrating the obvious fact that neo-Nazis are scum, merely shows the intellectual level on which Anonymous fellow-travelers feel themselves most comfortable. Especially since, given that it's German "neo-Nazis" we're talking about, whichever mouth-breathing gobshites are calling themselves "Anonymous" this time have been very careful to pick a target for which they have an entire government on their side. Look at these big bad Internet anarchists, in their Guy Fawkes masks and their incontinence diapers, careful to stay on the side of the law!

Ooh aren't we clever

...that said, though --

-- I'd put it in the same section with all the other "extracurricular activities" intended to make it look as though I developed a perfectly doctrinaire progressive social conscience around the same period in my childhood during which I was learning not to urinate on myself.

I believe I have done

And quite elegantly too, I thought. If you'd like to make some argument to the contrary, I'll be glad to entertain it.

Because I don't want to be accused of not caring for the less literate, let me put the same points in fewer and simpler words: neo-Nazis are laughable scum and don't deserve the self-aggrandizement of thinking anyone else takes them seriously; Anonymous is playing in the same mud puddle as these so-called neo-Nazis because they're all on about the same mental level, which is not high; and, finally, it's hilarious in any case to see the oh-so-anarchist Anonymous kiddies going to some effort to keep it all legal and above-board in this instance.

If you think you've made an elegant and coherent point...

it usually means you're being a dick. And you're wrong. It's probably worth pointing out that you've misunderstood Anonymous as being a single entity with singular views, perhaps even a heirarchy. It's a collective of different views, it's more like a hashtag than a party name, and so it's not that their views change from day to day, it's just that a different segment decides to voice their opinions and rally some like-minded people around them. If you think that you can classify them all as one thing or another you're kind of missing the point.

Try reading next time

My having described the instigators of this action as "whichever mouth-breathing gobshites are calling themselves "Anonymous" this time" really supports your argument that I've misgathered them as a tinfoil-hat-style conspiracy, doesn't it? I'm still trying to figure out where you pulled that from. Nothing I've said suggests that Anonymous is an organization, much less monolithic, much less hierarchical; I need commit none of those errors in order to despise anyone who flies that flag for a would-be wrecker of the nomos too cowardly to pick up a crowbar and risk getting hurt for what he professes to believe in.

I have to say, though, I do like the priorities on display here. Better to be friendly and wrong than to be correct but insufficiently polite about it? Good God.

" I need commit none of those errors in order to despise anyone who flies that flag"

And that isn't grouping them together as one entity? Gotcha.

It's better to be right and have people actually bother reading what you said, the less polite you are the less likely that you'll have people spend time to look at what you've written and treat it without a prejudgement. I have no problem with being wrong, I like being corrected, but you haven't done this so far.

Making Donations

Party membership is one thing for a legal party but don't financial donations to political parties have to be declared? Suppose I give x million to a party and then they exclude my business from some tobacco advertising laws or I give a couple of million to another party then seem to get rather nice tax breaks this surely should be in the public domain!

I'm not impressed

Honestly I think it's rather pathetic when Anonymous picks on already marginalized targets, e.g. nazis, pedophiles. Aside from being rather unsporting, it's a waste of effort as I see it. When they take on big corporations and crooked cops, now THAT is impressive.

I'm worried....

but more with myself than anything. I can't stand Anonymous' normal quasi-political adolescent bullshit perpetrated from their mum's basement, but when you get two groups of fucking morons kicking off on each other it becomes surrealy entertaining.

Yeah, the nazi fuckwits probably do have a right to spout their tedious racist bullshit in a democratic society (although, it is illegal in Germany so they are probably on thin ice anyway). Yeah, the majority of 'Anonymous', whatever the hell that means anyway, are in a different country behind a proxy or seven so will never get found, much less prosecuted, unless they're the script kiddie cannon fodder which always come in handy. But this is just like watching two braindamaged chimps fight each other off a branch into a skip full of rusty metal. Which suits me just fime